Images

Being an artist (and because I know it is good thing anyway) I like to have at least two images to each page on my website. I tend to get many of them from Google Images. What I am wondering is how can I tell if they are copyrighted? I have only found one that said it was. Do I just take a punt and use it and if someone complains, remove it?Barb

I'd definitely NOT do that. That's copyright violation and although you probably won't land in the slammer or even pay a fine -- because they're likely to contact you and demand you remove it first -- my understanding is that 1) they don't have to warn you, they can just sue you or demand payment and 2) it's illegal and unethical any way you slice it.

Just to clarify a couple of points, you are not getting the images from Google Images, you are getting images from peoples websites that you find using the Google Images website. The second point is that wheter or not it says on each site the images as well as the text is copyrighted unless it expressly says that it isn't, and even then its uses can sometimes be limited by licence conditions etc. There are exceptions to this where the image (or text) is in the public domain, but thats a whole other subject.

There are lots of services about where you can purchase the right to use an image on your site.

Another way of getting images legally is to look for "creative commons" licenced pictures. For example wikipedia's media pool offers a great range of images that are free to use if you adhere to the obligations those licenses bring with them (differs, but quite often you just have to tell your readers where you got the pic from) A very special pool of free pictures is the NASA media pool. As those were created using public money, most of them are in the public domain and may be used by everyone.

I wholeheartedly agree with Jon's assessment. Images are intellectual property and use without permission is going to get you in a jam. I like his suggestion on using Stock xchange, http://www.sxc.hu/advanced_search. It's great and most images are free, as it's an exchange type operation. The only catch is that you have to let the photographer know you are using the images. They even make that easy, by providing a direct email box to notify the photog.

I use iStockphoto.com they are reasonably priced but you must purchase a linsense for the level you will use it. It is one price if you post it on a website but more if you use it on 10,000,000 brochures.

Having taken 2 years to get out of an attempt by Getty to claim reducing amounts (started around $1700 and got down to about $900) for an image on a site that I did not create, I would say "BE CAREFUL"! There is a sort of gentlemans agreement about a 'fair use' policy provided there is accreditation but that depends on where you get the images from. I have found during my research that most legit companies will write and ask you to remove an image immediately and if you don't do it, then they sue. If you site makes money, they are within their rights to claim a part of that income (8% I believe). Guess I was kinda fortunate as 8% of nothing was still nothing from an info only site!

I won't use Getty for anything, and istock is owned by them.

For odd pictures I go to www.morguefile.com which is usually just joe public's images and all they occasionally want is to know where the image is being used. Any other restrictions are listed under the image but generally, again, it is a fair use policy.

I'm certainly not a copyright lawyer, so the above is just my opinion gained via experience and research. Could quote you the relevant laws from the UK if you need them.